UK Video Game Chart: Gears of War: Judgment claims No.1 spot

Sold just a quarter of Gear of War 3's launch week total.

Gears of War: Judgment is a new entry at No.1, ending Tomb Raider's two week run at the top of the All Formats Chart.

Judgment is the fourth game in the Gears of War series, but its status as a stop-gap prequel rather than a true sequel means it was never likely to match up to the sales of Gears of War 3. Judgment managed just a quarter of the week one total achieved by Gears 3.

Tomb Raider sales took a 44 per cent hit as it slid to No.2, followed by Activision's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct which is new at No.3.

FIFA 13 makes its 26 weeks straight inside the Top 6, moving up two places to No.4 thanks to a 32 per cent rise in sales. Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is down 37 per cent to No.5, whilst God of War: Ascension suffers a 61 per cent hit and drops to No.6.

Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate makes its chart debut at No.7, with 55 per cent of sales coming on 3DS and the remaining 45 per cent on Wii U. The Wii U version accounted for almost 50 per cent of Wii U game sales value for the week.

Nintendo Land also makes a re-entry at No.39, presumably as a result of new Wii U buyers picking up the console for Monster Hunter. Wii U saw a number of other new releases, with NFS: Most Wanted taking fifth place in the console's Top 10 (11 per cent of the game's all-format sales), and The Walking Dead charting at seventh (accounted for just one per cent of the game's all-formats sales).

Price drops helped Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance up 114 per cent from No.19 to No.11, while Aliens: Colonial Marines is up 71 per cent from No.21 to No.16.

Elsewhere Blizzard's StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm slumped from No.3 to No.24, presumably because of the popularity of digital buying.

VideoGamer.com Analysis

Gears of War: Judgment's failure to come close to sales of Gears 3 can be attributed to three factors: not being a numbered sequel and the perception this brings, a March release date opposed to Gears 3's late September debut, and the current decline in software sales as the console generation waits for the next to begin.

We'll have to wait on official word from Microsoft to see how well, or badly, Gears of War: Judgment has performed.

Tomorrow sees the launch of BioShock Infinite which will surely take the No.1 spot and is also in with a good shout of becoming the year's biggest seller so far. Also look out for strong Top 10 entries for Nintendo duo Luigi's Mansion 2 on 3DS and LEGO City: Undercover for Wii U.

8 Comments

User Comments

Surely what matters is how much money the games made for the publisher? That will drive further work on the franchise or format (and Wii U certainly needs some more good software sales to encourage further big third party titles).

That list above isn't right at all, God of War: Ascension is debuted at #2 and is now #5. Gears of War: Judgment only reached number 1 because Tomb Raider & GoW:A have been out for over a week and are slowing down, Gears of War: Judgment is still doing horrible compared to past games and won't outsell Tomb Raider or God of War: Ascension lifetime.

Considering the two platforms are have much lower install bases in the UK, when compared to the 360 and PS3, which have been out much longer. And considering this is a remastering of a game from a franchise that is only really cult status in Europe, 7th isn't terrible.

Posted 19:01 on 25 March 2013

rbevanx

Yeah not nice to see Monster Hunter that low, Gears doesn't deserve to be number 1.

7th is bloody awful for Monster Hunter, considering it was essentially on 2 platforms. That being said, I have heard lots of talk about limited availability, perhaps because Nintendo have restricted supplies as they want people to download the game instead? Anecdotal internet evidence suggests people are actually quite happy to pay the extra.